By Nabin Kafle
Supply Chain management and logistics is one of the most affected areas after a catastrophic event. The regular local supply chain is disrupted and the flow from outside of the affected area becomes the victim of fear and fails to operate efficiently. Within the short time lapsed after the event, the supply chain is overwhelmed by the arrival of massive amounts of donated supplies. This adds to the bottlenecking of the under-performing disrupted supply chain network. Additionally, the donated supplies may include a large proportion of inappropriate goods or useless materials.
The incoming donation materials at the affected site might be so heterogeneous that sorting them in an appropriate manner becomes extremely difficult. The supplies might include items ranging from life-sustaining critical items like medicines and packed foods, to items that might not be an immediate requirement but can be used in the future like blankets received during a hot climate, to non-usable items like unusable clothes, items irrelevant or inappropriate to the event and even dangerous materials like expired food and medications. These items have been classified as High Priority (HP) items, Low Priority (LP) items and Non Priority (NP) items by Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Number of studies and field investigation has shown that portion of LP and NP items during a catastrophic event is considerably higher. This also requires a greater effort to sort, distribute, label, as well as store the items.
The arrival of the NP and LP items is often due to the donor’s lack of knowledge about the actual needs at the disaster site. Also, there might be private companies that want to advertise their products and some other companies who might use the opportunity to dump their unsold inventories in the name of philanthropy or charity contribution, and account it as charitable tax deductions. The arrival of these items would first inundate the disaster site. Because the amount of donations is much greater than the regular operations, there is likely to be huge backlog in the acceptance points (airports, ports or other points of entry). Since the received items cannot be distributed right away, they have to sit in the warehouses till they are sorted out. Even after sorting, there is confusion as to who and where the items will be distributed. The NP and LP items would take up precious space at the warehouse. Some items might be perishable and this may cause further problems. After few months of storage, the items might not be useful in any sectors and hence must be discarded. To sum up, the logistical inefficiency during the catastrophic event is not a surprise at all. The extent to which this inefficiency might rise depends upon a number of factors like the nature of the event, its proximity of the location from the donors, the amount of LP and NP goods, and also the resiliency of the supply network.
The post-earthquake scenario in Nepal also faces this huge inefficiency in logistical operations. Huge backlog of cargos can be seen at the airport, while there are people who are in need of these basic supplies of food and medicines. The author will be involved in a study supported by the National Science Foundation to study the status of the humanitarian logistics during this disaster in Nepal. The study would be useful to learn the experiences of the disaster and make policy related recommendations that would be helpful for the future scenarios.
The author studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and can be reached by email.
Supply Chain management and logistics is one of the most affected areas after a catastrophic event. The regular local supply chain is disrupted and the flow from outside of the affected area becomes the victim of fear and fails to operate efficiently. Within the short time lapsed after the event, the supply chain is overwhelmed by the arrival of massive amounts of donated supplies. This adds to the bottlenecking of the under-performing disrupted supply chain network. Additionally, the donated supplies may include a large proportion of inappropriate goods or useless materials.
The incoming donation materials at the affected site might be so heterogeneous that sorting them in an appropriate manner becomes extremely difficult. The supplies might include items ranging from life-sustaining critical items like medicines and packed foods, to items that might not be an immediate requirement but can be used in the future like blankets received during a hot climate, to non-usable items like unusable clothes, items irrelevant or inappropriate to the event and even dangerous materials like expired food and medications. These items have been classified as High Priority (HP) items, Low Priority (LP) items and Non Priority (NP) items by Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Number of studies and field investigation has shown that portion of LP and NP items during a catastrophic event is considerably higher. This also requires a greater effort to sort, distribute, label, as well as store the items.
The arrival of the NP and LP items is often due to the donor’s lack of knowledge about the actual needs at the disaster site. Also, there might be private companies that want to advertise their products and some other companies who might use the opportunity to dump their unsold inventories in the name of philanthropy or charity contribution, and account it as charitable tax deductions. The arrival of these items would first inundate the disaster site. Because the amount of donations is much greater than the regular operations, there is likely to be huge backlog in the acceptance points (airports, ports or other points of entry). Since the received items cannot be distributed right away, they have to sit in the warehouses till they are sorted out. Even after sorting, there is confusion as to who and where the items will be distributed. The NP and LP items would take up precious space at the warehouse. Some items might be perishable and this may cause further problems. After few months of storage, the items might not be useful in any sectors and hence must be discarded. To sum up, the logistical inefficiency during the catastrophic event is not a surprise at all. The extent to which this inefficiency might rise depends upon a number of factors like the nature of the event, its proximity of the location from the donors, the amount of LP and NP goods, and also the resiliency of the supply network.
The post-earthquake scenario in Nepal also faces this huge inefficiency in logistical operations. Huge backlog of cargos can be seen at the airport, while there are people who are in need of these basic supplies of food and medicines. The author will be involved in a study supported by the National Science Foundation to study the status of the humanitarian logistics during this disaster in Nepal. The study would be useful to learn the experiences of the disaster and make policy related recommendations that would be helpful for the future scenarios.
The author studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and can be reached by email.
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